


Not All Who Wander:  Juvenile Delinquents

by alephthirteen



Series: The Columbia-verse [3]
Category: Original Work, Real Person Fiction
Genre: And Some Are Gay About It, But It Is About Powered Teenagers, But Sorry Jerry Falwell Teens Do Have Sex, Doctor Manhattan From Watchmen But For Gender Identity, F/F, F/M, Hilarious Endings for Aged Perverts, It Was Surreal, Just Kids, Like That Except The Kids Are Not Evil, M/M, Maybe Someone Was On To Something Not Trusting Anyone Over Thirty, Porn With Plot, Recovery Has Been Slow, Remember That One Twilight Zone Episode?, THIS IS NOT THE X-MEN, TW: Consensual Underage Sex, TW: Homophobes, TW: Republicans, Teenagers Are Stubborn, The Author Worked in a Middle School, They Also Do Not Plan Long Term, Vicious Mockery of Politicians, We Do Not Allow Pedophiles in Our Stories, teenagers are horny
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:33:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26082748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alephthirteen/pseuds/alephthirteen
Summary: As a religious cult ascends to power via assassination, superheroes emerge across America in the survivors of a strange, fast-acting illness.  Those that survive are often in LGBTQ children, wrongly imprisoned ex-cons, and racial minorities.  The Leader of the Free World must decide if hard discipline will save the children or end his Kingdom of God before it can begin.The problem for the children is whether the powers that be can tolerate that.  The problem for those in power is that murdering children is harder than it seems.  The problem for the country is whether these extraordinary young people can save them from their own idiocy.ORA trans girl, a gay man, a junkie, a con, and a socially anxious woman among others must master their powers, their confidence and their courage to save the United States from its own government.
Series: The Columbia-verse [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1379410
Comments: 13
Kudos: 6





	1. Et Tu, Hole in a Fencepost?

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a huge fan of several X-Men and less interested in others which is why it's neat that there are dozens. There are some popular X-Men who would never EXIST as solos or likely be seen as heroes if they did. 
> 
> All of these characters along with dozens of improbable others have, at times, been heroic or at least worked noble goals.
> 
> Emma Frost (sexually confident, provocatively dressed dominatrix and mind-controller with schemes to shame Game of Thrones)  
> Jean Grey (confident, educated redhead with the power to destroy the universe if she can't restrain her dark side)  
> Magneto (gay, Jewish, possible megalomaniac and confirmed anti-bigot and anti-fascist)  
> Mystique (shapeshifter and lethal martial artist assassin, a genderfluid person who has been mourning her wife since the Victorian era)  
> Scarlet Witch (godlike woman of Romani descent)  
> The Cuckoos (five identical platinum blond, Children of the Corn types who may have inherited their mom's penchant for mindsex but there's a hive mind)
> 
> Imagine any of these headlining a **solo** solo comic at one of the Big Two and not being the villain.
> 
> * * *
> 
> **Content Notes:**  
>  Homophobes and transphobes, some violent, will appear in the story.
> 
> Underage sexual activity.
> 
> **FURTHER EXPLANATION:**  
>  Characters not yet aged 18 -- some of them major characters -- engage in sexual activity. Hence the 'underage' tag. But their age will not be fetishized or even mentioned frequently, besides the typical complaints about grownups not letting them do stuff. I often find it off-putting how often erotic online stories bang on mentioning "She's 18" even in the MOST PERVERTED SITUATIONS where I'm wanting to bleach my mouse for clicking on the wrong one so I feel like that's almost a fetish unto itself. Emphasizing age either in a predatory (she's X years younger and so gullible) or an its-all-good (she's 18 so the rest of this is fine) is squicky either way.
> 
> Feedback welcome. Negative feedback welcome. Comment asking for that or disturbing others and the author reserves the right to invoke the Ripley Protocol and nuke your comment from orbit.
> 
> All sexual partners are same-age except for the adults and all acts involved will be typical or ordinary for participants of that age (with each other). Anyone who has set foot in a school for any reason saw enough raw hormones to know that this is part of teenageness.
> 
> The kids are the heroes here. So if they get the boy, girl, or neither of their dreams, that's just how heroes journeys work.
> 
> I want it to be kids being stupid and hasty (kids) and maybe a bit too powerful for their own good and teenagers are getting to the age where they do things like have sex, steal cigarettes, shoplift, and overthrow tyrannical religious empires.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where there's a new girl in town and she starts with a bang, gays in space, and the victimizers might just become the victims.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, I'm surprised this hasn't happened already, given President Trump...  
> \-----  
> There are more than a few conservative Evangelical Christian politicians who want to take over the US government and make it a theocracy. I'm not exaggerating. They're not uncommon here in my new home state of Texas. I've had some version of the 'marginalized people get superpowers' story rattling in my head for a while. Moving down here fleshed it out and accelerated it.  
> \-----  
> If you're into suspense horror, look into "Project Blitz"  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Blitz

**February 14th, 2017 | Day 0, Year 0**

"Please raise your right hand and repeat after me."

"I, Michael Richard Pence, do solemnly swear..."

* * *

"Sir, I was so sorry to hear about President Trump!"

"Mmm. Tragic."

"Who even does that? Paints a man's daughter naked on a fence? On Valentine's day, even!"

"Someone who thinks he might his sinful parts get stuck in it and have a heart attack, I imagine. Keep on it. We need to bring these terrorists to justice."

"Absolutely, sir. Oh, and the gentlemen for Rustoleum are in your office."

I look down at my hands and pull my suit sleeve further down.

_How much paint thinner will this take to get off?_

* * *

"He's coding! Get a cart in here!"

The skinny teen on the table thrashes and convulsed, froth pouring from his mouth and blood seeping from every pore. Forty-five minutes ago, this was a healthy kid sitting in band class. Blood results suggest there's hardly anything left in his bloodstream but the pathogen and spent white blood cells and it seems unless I invent a new branch of medicine in thirty seconds, he'll die. 

One of the nurses jumps back.

"Ah!"

"Let me see."

She holds up her burned hand and the dripping, goopy mess of her melted glove. I look back and see the air around his skin heating up. The plastic of the bed melting. Arcs of electricity crawling along the skin.

"You! Burn ward, NOW! Everyone else, OUT!"

I barely make it out before an explosion guts the room.

* * *

It's a pediatric ICU. Children die here sometimes. Wicked but true. It hurts. Today, it is agony. 

After we lose one, it's hard. Fro days. At first, we give each other a moment and maybe have a cry. Then it's a week before anyone tells a joke.

This is worse. Usually, we can ease the pain. Usually, parents or _someone_ is here to hold their hand rather than running away like scared rabbits. 

All around me, a crack team of doctors and nurses stand staring into space, barely responding to their surroundings. Soldiers in the trenches.

My phone has been clattering on the floor for an hour, with CDC alerts and panicked texts from patients and colleagues. This disease, whatever it is, kills in less than ninety minutes and this isn't even the most grisly death. Timestamps on the CDC app suggest it might be the _first_ of its kind.

"Dr. Pattola?"

I'm either losing it or that came from the room. The room looks like Hiroshima the day after. The destroyed equipment is now shadows, parts of the wall that were burned a shade or two paler. The room Jesse Hunter just died in and in a way so awful I can't imagine even explaining it to the parents in an hour when they're here.

"Dr. Pattola?"

One of the nurses, a man named Mike Jacobs, taps my wrist.

"Doctor, look."

I look up from my spot against the nurse's desk counter where I landed when the shockwave threw me. In the center of the room, curled tight in a fetal position at the center of the blast...is a teenage girl.

Mike holds out Jesse's chart. His scruffy face splits in a grin. The same grin he had after he saved the day for the Crimson Tide with a surprise touchdown, I suppose.

Mike is the most cheerful, easy-going man I know. Without this six-foot-six, two-hundred-eighty pound bag of sunshine with Ranger tats, we'd have lost more than a few kids because he hadn't been there to say 'you can do this, you're a fighter' when they were at their lowest. Doesn't hurt that the natives love him so much some of them probably came back from the brink for more college football stories or the Army jokes he tells the goody-two-shoes ones who's parents aren't looking. 

"Went up to Pedes, Endo, Surgery. Did some asking. Merged the paramedic's stuff with her last chart."

"Her? Was...oh god, did I _deadname_ a dying girl? The only time she was lucid?"

He laughs.

"Lucky for you, doc, pronounced the same."

I grab the chart from his bricklike fingers. 

> _Name: Jesse Hunter Thompson_
> 
> _Preferred name: Jessi_
> 
> _Preferred pronouns: she/her_
> 
> _Medications: testosterone blockers, estrogen, antidepressants_
> 
> _Treatments for: depression (stable), eating disorders (remission), ongoing male to female transition (hormone), planned male to female (surgical)_
> 
> _Notes: psych consults per-visit/ past suicide attempts / severe depression / child services consult / possible abuse / diet restrictions lifted if patient is below 70% of max normal BMI for age/height._
> 
> _Considerations: Preferred contact is father (Frank) and mother (Sarah) is not to be contacted unless Aunts (Josephine, Clara) or Uncle (Howards, Jack) are not available_

"Jesse? I mean, Jessi?" I call out.

"Yeah!"

"So...I'm in the hospital, cool, cool. Did y'all like, drop a trans bomb on my school or something? Because I did _not_ have these darlings this morning in gym class."

I shrug off my lab coat. Standing on wobbly legs, I walk over and kneel down beside her curled-up, sweat-slicked body.

"Here, honey. Let's get you some clothes. Then we can talk."

* * *

The Situation Room looks like a graveyard. Generals sit staring dumbly at papers. The head of NASA is looking at some photos and not-so-secretly emptying his hip flask into his coffee. 

"Are you sure, director? Are you positive about these survival rates?"

The director of the CDC flinches then he nods.

"I'm a man of God, and I ain't a doctor but the eggheads that work for me say yeah, same kids. There's a pattern to it, god help us. Seems like the ones who beat it, speakin' generally, ain't God's folk. Few of them but usually it's the perverts and the criminals."

The NASA man slugs the last of his coffee.

"It's not just that, sir. The space station just reported back. Said that they got the kid inside and scary thing is he's alive. Having the time of his life up there. All he remembers is throwing up at home and passing out. But he did mention always thinking he wanted to be an astronaut someday."

"Theories?"

The NASA guy nods.

"The virus, fungus, whatever causes its victims to explode. More like disintegrate actually. Not a trace. This kid isn't the only one to report a memory gap. Trans children, LGB-"

"Perverts, Mr. Clarkson. That boy is a self-admitted sodomite and under my administration, we do not dignify such things."

"Of course, sorry sir. Simply stating a pattern in the victims. What if the people who survive are the people who really badly want to be someone else? Not just dress up. The have an entire identity they want more than their current one. Want it so badly they can see the other version of them in their mind's eye with such detail that they come back. Nine minutes, thirteen and forty-three hundredths of a second later. Four cases, the ones at sporting events. Such a weird detail it's probably true for each one. They're not surviving it, they're ignoring the damn thing, or partnering with it or talking to God for about ten minutes when they're not with us. It tells them to disappear and they play along and come back because disappearing let them remake themselves."

The CIA reports that I am allowed a certain number of secret murders. If he thinks God is involved, I can't have him telling CNN that. I haven't had time to get my brothers and sisters into enough positions yet. I drum my fingers on the tabletop.

"Any supporting evidence for that?"

"Good lord, no. There's no supporting evidence for any of this. Physics doesn't support the _mechanisms_ of this disease. This one in Alabama? There's blast shadows of a defibrillator cart in the grass a thousand feet out the window. Force equivalent to a nuclear blast but it except as light, none of the energy left a ten-foot radius. Dented the walls of the next room over but didn't so much as jostle the kid and they're a spinal injury victim so we're confident of that."

"What I find curious? She was transitioning. Goes in as a male, after the explosion, female. Skipped right through surgeries and drugs that take ten years. Doctors are being stubborn about the privacy stuff but it's like they blew up as Adam, came back as Eve."

_Is he trying to provoke me? I suppose someone needs to be the first public execution._

"This one in New Mexico, on the reservation? Called in a favor and had the ATF sweep through. That house is below background radiation levels. Cosmic background levels, not just Earth background. It is cleaner than the universe allows and gradually equalizing. Thirty miles downwind from a Cold War test site and my bedroom has more radiation. This one, in Portland? Dissolved every wall as she walked out of juvie, new clothes just appeared on her body and her body _sweated_ out the heroin in her system."

"Exactly jack-shit of that is possible. I'm just putting a theory together that links the pattern of death to the survivors' shared psychological conditions -- possibly, at least -- and incident reports from the aftermath. Quite frankly I'm bullshitting the middle part because we don't have it. Maybe they do if the memories come back."

I turn to the Joint Chiefs.

"Every one of these kids. Black bag them. Gitmo, Area 51. Find out what they know and who they are working for. Whatever it takes. No mercy. Let me know how much meat is left and I'll give you new orders at that time."

"Sir? With six exceptions, three of them green card holders and two DACA recipients and one _ambassador's daughter_ , these are native-born American citizens. Children, mostly. Few in their twenties."

"You heard me."

"Aye-aye."

* * *

Every attending in the hospital is here, including some that had to be dragged out of bed.

Our little medical miracle has her knees pulled up tight to her chest. After an hour or two, it clicked. This was the snarky, joke-at-the-ready little boy who came in the ER during my residency after getting his ass kicked by the girls who didn't want him on their soccer team.

Pediatrics ICU was more than enough to finish off my faith in God. Jessi at least puts back my faith in _people_ and good things happening sometimes.

"How are you feeling, Jessi?"

"Whew..." she exhales. "Tired? Hungry? Bit sore. My boobs aren't sore which is nice? I think? Don't ask. But my head is killing me and it hurts like I'm pretty sure my legs are broken, or were. Feels like I just did another four-day burn to study for Spanish class but I'm not stupid enough to do that twice."

"Can I write that down, sweetie?"

She shrugs.

"Knock yourself out, doc."

> _Patient reports pain in parts of body associated with modified sexual characteristics in structures both genders share (e.g. hip bones, vocal cords) but not with organs (vulva, breasts, utuerus?) which were not present before incident. Head pain and pupil response consitent with migraine or exhaustion from sleep deprivation from extended academic study._

I look at the neurologist who is scribbling notes so fast his pen is going to crack. The endocrinologist is practically drooling for a sample of blood. 

We have interviewing and basic vital signs and anything else, even if she's willing to try it, fails. The machine just stops or the personnel involved find themselves back at the edge of the ten-foot ring of blue tape. It's as if her body is rejecting reality if reality might harm it.

The head of OB/GYN managed to get away with a pelvic exam, then stepped back, smiled at the girl and scurried off praying in Latin. So far, no one has gotten a blood sample because the needles dissolve before they get near her skin. I'm the only one who's set foot inside what we're calling Jessi's Ring, except Doctor Bonsera and her father. Sort of honored, really. He's good for Jessi's state of mind and he's probably a great mechanic, has to be to put her in a private school but this isn't some rich assholes Lamborghini. I need doctors to figure this out. 

Her mother's Make America Great Again hat caught fire and she somehow managed to end up _fifty feet back_ and hasn't tried again since.

Jessi scrambles back up against the headboard. She is staring, horrified, at some half-liquid brown stain on the bedsheet

"Oh god! Yuck! What is that...it's like?" she leans a bit closer and sniffs. "Ugh, it's like a Snickers bar that just _gave up_! Ew!"

_Wait._

"Jessi, I know hospital food isn't your thing. Says that in your old chart."

"Were you thinking you wanted a Snickers bar?"

As if to stop her from lying, her stomach growls.

"Yeah, sorry. Why'd you ask?"

I glance down at the knobbly, half-melted brownish lump in her lap.

"Well, you did end up female because you _thought_ you were. Knew. Sorry. You get what I'm leading to, right?"

She nods, her dark blue eyes widening.

"You made a Snickers in your mind because your body wanted one. Just didn't know how they're made."

"Oh come on! So I explode, like _nuke_ this room and come back fully transitioned. Finally just me, Thank God. So that's a win? And I get bad cooking and needle breaking for a superpower? Not like, angel wings or laser claws or something?"

 _No, kid,_ I think. _You got everything as a superpower._

"You know what the coaches say," Mike jokes. "You gotta visualize how you're going to win the game."

An hour later, we're all eating her grandmother's Dixie Moonlight chocolate cake, famous at bake sales state-wide for its taste and for the mixture settling for twenty-four hours.

Because it only had eleven ingredients and she could imagine all of them and the process clearly in her mind.

"Can I take her home?" Jessi's father asks. "She...much time as she spends here, I don't think she likes it."

"By all means, Frank. I think we'd like to ask her questions later but we don't even know what to ask right now."

He smiles.

"Come on, sport. Let's go home."

"Can we work on the Pontiac?" she asks, her voice small.

"There's a lot of not-normal going around. Normal would be good for her. Help avoid another panic attack."

_Prolonged one might blow a hole all the way to the basement._

He looks at her and the way he does it I'm really glad she has _one_ parent like that.

"Gonna have to buy you new work gloves, Ace. But sure. Ain't ladylike to go to school with busted knuckles," he jokes.

"Aww! Dad! But chicks dig scars!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I started drafting this the idea of a half-illiterate pastor running the CDC seemed extreme except in the context of some Handmaid's Tale bullshit. Not I wonder if it'll be on my phones alert's tomorrow! Memories! 
> 
> PS-I will update this note if that happens.


	2. Adults!  So Set in their Ways...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where we meet our first adult transformed and the bloody wheels begin to turn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> JTAG plug = connector often present on computer circuit boards to allow for reprogramming.  
> NFC = near-field communication is a secure method for sending data at very short ranges (the 'tap your phone' payment things).  
> RSA-4096 = well known encryption method (RSA) using a 4096-bit key (larger than standard 1024)  
> Salted hash = introducing extra errors (salt) before encrypting a password to increase the difficulty of guessing it

**February 15th, 2020 | Day 2, Year 0**

* * *

**Washington, DC - Kayla Clarkson**

* * *

Ozone is what wakes me. The smell of failure. The smell all engineers have learned to fear.

"Fuuuck," I groan. 

With my legs feeling like overcooked noodles and my stomach flipping like a yo-yo, sitting upright is a lot of work. I feel very adult and sexy that I managed it. Putting it on my resume for that job at Intel. Around me is the proof we are going to have a nasty hotel bill. The bathroom is a sludgy mix of cracked tile, porcelain crumbs, and...melted brass fixtures. The toilet got the worst of it so it's basically a career and it's not leaking on me at least, so yay.

"Right. OK. Remember needing to throw up. Do _not_ remember the aliens."

_If they probed me, they're super bad at it. Doesn't feel like a good time was had by all._

All right. I have stood all the way up, like a two-legged primate. I am the sexiest woman alive.

Grabbing the bathroom door for much needed moral support, I half walk, half flop into the bedroom.

On the desk are my MacBook, iPad and a solid steel, suitcase-sized _beast_ of a laptop I bought rather than my first car. Various implements of evil circuitry, soldering and internet wickedness are scattered around it. Isn't cutting edge hacking gear unless there's literally an edge on the PCB.

"Oh, baby!" I cry. "Missed you!"

Looks like the ozone smell was the light fixtures by the hotel room door. That's a relief.

The air conditioning vent does not know how to keep its hands to itself, I realize as head towards the desk.

"Jesus, Hilton! Mind the nips!"

Bathrobes were in the bathroom, along with my suitcase. Great. If I ask room service up, they're probably going to see the blast site, send the police up and charge us money I very much do not have. I'm halfway through knotting the comforter around my ribs when my phone rings. I trip on the blanket-dress, losing a few primate points. It goes to voicemail.

"Stupid non-flavored carpet. Siri! Play last voicemail!"

"Hey, pumpkin. It's dad. Things are getting kind of intense with the Senators. Go to the lake house for a couple days. Try out the new fiber link. Oh, and I think there's a croissant place. Love you."

"What the what?"

I grab my phone and dial him back. Number not in service. I pull up my email. One. From dad. Titled game night...which is encrypted.

"Fuck. Let's see."

Not my date of birth.

Not my social.

Not my first pet.

Then it hits me. He's telling me to go to the lakehouse where we haven't been since mom died. I think he sold it. I hate croissants with a fiery passion. There sure as fuck isn't fiber in Wyoming. This is something he needs no one to be able to guess.

My nickname. The one I made him never tell anyone else.

Sparkyhair. After that time I wanted to see how the circuit board in the microwave worked.

"Hah!"

Four words.

> **I love you. Run.**

My phone rings again.

"Dad this better be a goddamned bad jo-wait. Who are you?"

"Kayla? Kayla Roberts?"

They're using a voice scrambler.

"If I am?"

"You don't know me but your father asked me some questions about a patient and he's the only government person who did that didn't make my skin crawl. Now I can't reach him. I think you may be in danger. I want to help you."

"Bit late. I kind of woke up in a blast zone in the bathroom. Pretty sure the guys from _Taken_ came here, took a whack, saw what I look like naked and decided against it."

Voice scrambled laughter is _especially_ creepy.

"Well. Now I definitely need to help you. Here. I'm going to put someone on a conference call who can help."

"Hi, I'm Skylar."

"Uh, hi, kid."

"Behind you, there's a smart thermostat. TP-LINK brand. Open the case."

I turn, afraid to see if this little twit is right.

"Shit. How'd you?"

"Don't worry about that now, please. Open the case. Look for a small, eight-pi"

"JTAG plug. Got it. If it helps, kid? I'm a pen-tester. Hardware vulns. So, what's the payload?"

_It's a 16M ROM, 82281 chip,_ I realize.

Which is printed precisely nowhere on the circuit board. It's like my body just knew it like it used to know how to work my feet.

"Hold your phone up to it and open the NFC app."

"All right. Done."

"Sending...great. So it's now reporting that it's 3,413 degrees in there. The virus should affect the sprinklers shortly. Now, pack up anythin-do you have a cat?"

"Kid, I am in a hotel room in DC where I came with my dad because I am broke. I am wearing a blanket because I blew up all my clothes. Luckily for cats, I don't have one."

"Great, pack up whatever you need to _work_ and run. Tools of the trade. Laptop, whatever. Gun wouldn't hurt. Keep your phone on. I'll keep you out of CCTV. We need to you do something on your way out of town though."

"What?"

"Dr. P wouldn't tell me. I'm going to mute myself."

"We think that what happened to you is part of a larger phenomenon. Some sort of unique pathogen. The average age of the dead is 17 and average age of the survivors is 14. That should give you an idea that there are very few adult survivors. Including, apparently, you. If your father's bragging about you is any indication, I think you and I may be the best team to figure out what is going on. I believe there are two more survivors in the Metro area. We need to get you to them and get you all out."

"Lady, I was very patient with your squealy-voiced little hacking demon. Who the fuck are you?"

"Pediatric doctor. Two days ago, I had a teenage trans male enter the hospital, explode and return as a female. Got a call from the Army the next day. FBI today. Your dad day before yesterday. Not sure but I think a CIA agent replaced my usual Starbucks barista. All with lots of questions. One guess who was asking me _science_ questions."

"Yeah, that'd be pops. Wait, exp-"

"As in waking up naked and unharmed in a ruined bathroom, yes."

"Fuck."

"Pretty much. Good news is if the bad guys catch you, I don't think they know what they're dealing with. I don't."

"Lady, I failed sophomore self-defense classes at MIT nine times. I am not exact ath-the fuck!"

Except according to that full-length mirror, all those curls really started paying off. I look more like my 'goal sketch' than I do well, me.

"How the _fuck_ did my lazy ass get toned? I look like my workout inspiration board now."

"We don't know but it seems to be a side effect of the recovery. I'm going to put the kid back on." 

"OK. So, sounds like you need clothes. I can send a room service person up. Just knock him or her out, I guess."

"What?"

The doc answers. They need like, a tagged group chat or something.

"Kayla, since this started, three of my colleagues across the country have turned up dead. I think it is safe to say that stealing clothes is the lesser evil here."

"Right. Fine. Doc...this pathogen. Do we know how it is transmitted?"

"Not airborne. Skin contact, perhaps. Animal bite. It kills in ninety minutes from onset and only one in three victims recover, as you did. If it were airborne, we'd be losing millions. Quite frankly, I don't think everyone exposed contracts it...some secret sauce."

"Incubation period?"

"Couple days, I think. My patients, when I could ask, had taken a trip or a long bike ride. Vectors in remote areas."

"So, hypothetically...if I was with my boyfriend in Pennslyvania couple days ago, doing non-reverent things in Gettysburg National Park?"

"He could be one of the cases, quite likely. Whether he gave it to you or you to him...no way to know."

"Well," I tell her, gripping the lamp and waiting for the room service. "I'm going to blame it on his _other girlfriend_ he never told me about."

"Seems reasonable. I'll put the kid back on and if you need me, let them know."

=====

"Gap on the third fencepost. Turn right. Hop the fence. Yard the left has a dog. Big one. Yard on the right, camera. Go for the dog."

"How is _that_ a good idea?"

"Because the dog has a Facebook and it's the best behaved Neopolitan mastiff in Maryland, apparently."

I shrug.

"Sure. If I give you the password for my boyfriend's home security cam-"

"Already did. It's um...yeah."

"That's RSA-4096 encryption, kid. Salted. I set it up myself."

"Um, look...doc hasn't explained everything but there's _powers_ that come with this. Like, I can make stuff by focusing on what it is. Visualizing it real hard. Sometimes I sneeze. Usually, if it gets too far away, it just poofs! But sometimes you can do it right and it is durable."

"So?"

"So I imagined the smallest quantum computer I could do the math for. Since I didn't have to worry about details, or how to make the materials I just made it in a perfectly sealed vacuum for cooling with a continual flywheel for power."

"How big?"

"Backpack. Since it's reality-bendi-"

"Fuck that. Better name, kid."

"As I was saying. You interrupt a _lot_ , lady."

"So do you."

The girl clicks her tongue.

"Fair. Anyhow. Has an operating system and everything."

"So you can just skullfuck any encryption you can connect to."

"Basically. Airgaps are a problem. Working on some little like, quadcopter drones from Radio Shack for that. One of the other girls made a _sword._ Hunter is figuring out how to make himself fly. So cool."

"See, a hacker and ninja. Now I want to adopt you weirdos."

"I'm not saying no. I looked you up. You're way cool than my sister. She can't even fix the Roku. Doc can't adopt us. HIPAA. So job's open."

"Gotta go, Skye. Call you back."

I pull the gun I lifted from Walmart -- how the cameras missed it, I have no fucking idea -- and push the door open slowly.

Roger is leaning against the hallway wall. Brittany is bobbing up and down on his cock like she's late to an appointment.

She waves.

"Hi, Kayla!" she calls out, or rather tries.

"Oh, babe..." Roger groans.

He slumps back as Brittany's cheeks hollow. She wipes the last bit of jizz on her hand.

"Having fun?" I ask.

"Yeah. Thanks for letting me stay."

"Yeah, well..."

_What do I say? That if you were even semi-normal I'd have dumped him and bitch-slapped you? That I'm starting to having feelings for you that don't involve my clit?_

Truth is I let her stay because she is a maxed-out slut, not ashamed about it and when I'm with her, sex just is fu. Simple. Without me needing to be self-conscious about good girl, bad girl or whether a woman with my degrees should be doing _that_ or anything like that. I am not immune to a woman who wants me to fuck her. Not by miles. Easy on the eyes with a tossably small body, golden-brown skin. Lips so pillowy I could take a nap. Boobs that meant she never had to get a real job after college, what with webcams, various sauces she could drizzle in various places, PayPal, horny men and her lack of shame.

Roger and I weren't open and it had started a few days before. It hurt, finding out. If I had gone on longer, or if I hadn't walked in on them, probably would have gone differently. Her idea of sorry-for-fucking-your-boyfriend was just unzipping my jeans and licking me while I was still shouting at him. Once I got over the shock, she waited for me to consent and at that point, I was way madder at him than her. He was the one I kicked to the couch that night, though I took it out on her in a dozen other ways.

For a lot of things Roger and I wanted to try together, she's been more than happy to be the guinea pig, sandwich filling, rope spool, or footstool for. For that part of our relationship, she's been a godsend.

"Say, Kayla..."

"Yes, my dear little copper-plated cumbucket?"

"Ooh, that's a good one. Put it on the list, please. You don't look so good. You sick?"

"Was, yeah. You guys had any weird, like, episodes recently? Vomiting..."

"Blowing up the bed?" Brittany fills in. "Real sorry."

"Yeah, that. Listen, I think someone's after me and my dad's probably dead so if you actually own any clothes, put them on because we're leaving."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kayla is going to be a lot of fun. I love writing her inner monologue.
> 
> Roger is going to be doing his best but mostly confused and outvoted by the women he's with and less useful in urban spycraft since he's a freelance artist. 
> 
> Brittany enjoys sex that other people think is too much (dirty talk, roughness, being spit on, etc.) and she uses it to her advantage. She also has a huge romantic crush on Kayla but she hasn't realized it yet so don't tell her.


	3. Nazi Rockets and Stripper Heels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where we catch up with the NASA Director who stood up in the Situation Room, meet an old friend of Kayla's, and chill with several tons of hydrogen peroxide-based rocket fuel that's been out in the sun too long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Redstone Arsenal is a multipurpose base that various commands, projects, and so on are attached to and have been consolidated into as others close. In fact, the first US ballistic missile was simply an improved V2 and named the PGM-11 "Redstone" after the facility.
> 
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PGM-11_Redstone>
> 
> It was a NASA and Air Force rocket engine research facility form 1945 to the mid-1960s and after the war several captured Nazi rockets were taken there, along with the scientists who designed them...the same Nazis who were absolutely essential in the "American" triumph of landing on the moon.
> 
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEJ9HrZq7Ro>

**February 16th, 2020 | Day 2, Year 0**

* * *

**Redstone Arsenal - Northern Alabama | Thomas Clarkson**

* * *

I sift through the burner phones. 

"Just pick one, dude! Shouldn't even be in here!" the soldier who brought me snaps. Chad. Friend of Kayla's from high school and stationed here with the Materiel Command. One of six incident survivors in the military and of those, the only one isolated.

The most vulnerable. None of his squadmates are going through the same thing.

Naturally, the best person for a graying rocket scientist to run off with.

"Not even sure how we made it past those guys. They were Tier I types. Not screwing around."

Something skitters by the nose cone of the old rocket in the corner and his M4 snaps up, tracking the sound.

"Easy, kid."

I nod to the captured V-2s, V-1s and other Nazi rocket paraphernalia in the lab.

"They're wondering what to do about the fact that we have 60,000 pounds of eighty-year-old, Nazi German rocket fuel to either side of us. They don't know what makes it unstable but I do. Going to take them a while to look up a how-to on breaching with something that volatile in the mix."

"I'm not even sure their hearts are in it. Imagine being ordered to go round up and torture American children, Chad."

"That's fucked up. No shit?"

"I was in the room when he said it. You didn't sign up for that and neither did the Joint Chiefs. My hunch is they're trying to fail whenever possible. Stall until the brass gets Pence's attention elsewhere."

"Besides, I may be on the run but I was never fired. So I still have pull with the right sort of people."

"How's Kayla?" he asks.

"She's good. Freelancing. Wants a nine to five. Not sure why. She's making good money. Dating some artist."

"Roger."

"Well," I chuckle. "At least you know his name. All I know is that yes, daddy, he is selling work and no daddy, I'm not supporting him financially. Thanks for the name."

"Ah, yeah, we...uh...talk sometimes?"

"At ease, soldier. Last time I tried to put a curfew on that girl I got two things: a glimpse of what she could really do with her mom's genius and a whole bunch of things I never needed to see."

"Yeah?"

"She might've rebuilt the electrical system of a 1973 Rambler from all over the junkyard so she could go to a strip club, driven it with three phone books under her butt and tricked out the electronic lock on the back door with aluminum foil. Hypothetically."

"Right. Hypothetically. So what happened?"

This one will work. I grab three identical, comparatively recent Nokias.

"Hypothetically? Little lady damn near got adopted by a gaggle of topless women. She was there for the costumes and because some idiot boy at school told her about shoes with goldfish in them."

"No shit?"

"None whatsoever. The cops let me in the back and she is, I shit you not, cleaning malware off the phone of someone who went by Crystal Berries on stage. She has seven big sisters clustered all around her and I'm walking sideways covering my eyes...pardon me...excuse me...just need to grab the kid...and every other step I'm brushing against someone who is _not my wife."_

"So yeah, I had an uncontainable thirteen-year-old but when I took a step back, Kayla hadn't gotten pregnant, she had done it all out of curiosity and she had fucking planned it. She knew she'd be more plausible in a car. So she built one. She knew they'd card her, hence, shorting the lock on the back door. She didn't know that was the dancer only area, at least I think but then it was mission accomplished so she didn't care."

"What'd you do?"

"Paid a friend of mine who was in the Marines to give the older boy who told her about the place a stern warning. Told Kayla to ask questions in the future and that I wouldn't be mad."

"How'd that go?"

I chuckle.

"Think Jenny the Gunny cured him of his taste for tall blondes."

"Ah."

"Yup. Thanks, Chad. Take this one," I tell him, handing one of the burners.

"This is a common model. Third most common planet-wide. Go to your computer, copy the entire thing to your hard drive. I will send you a guide on how to clone it so if we need to swap out, you can clone, grab and go. This app here is an RSS feed of our satellites. I don't know what each of the spy satellites does but I do know _where_ they are so my shit doesn't crash into their shit. Should help you find the dead spots."

He opens a pouch in his backpack.

"Thanks."

I lift the storm sewer grate and climb down.

"Stay safe, Chad. I'm pretty sure your bosses will want you rounded up too. Find someone you trust with your life, just one or two people, and figure out the limits of this, all right soldier?"

"Solid copy, Tom. Thanks. Say hi to Kayla, huh?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clearly, as we converge our various little groups on Alabama, some shit is likely to go down there.


End file.
